Getting Started

Release requirements / notes

Windows:

• Odin needs the MSVC compiler and windows SDK from the "Desktop development with C++" component. If you don't have this already, you can download the installer here. Make sure to at least click on "Desktop development with C++" and tick the boxes for MSVC and the Windows SDK. It should look something like:
  • If you want the smallest install possible, there is a third-party script that installs only the things that are needed
• Optionally add the Odin compiler directory to the PATH environment variable so odin.exe is accessible everywhere on your computer

MacOS:

• Install XCode command-line tools xcode-select --install
  • If that command is not found you may need to install XCode from the App Store
• Note that this release does not come with wasm-ld for compiling to WASM, you have to install that separately as described in the chapter about building from source
• Optionally add the Odin folder to your shell's path or symlink the odin binary to a folder that is in your shell's path
  • Example for ZSH (from the Odin folder): echo 'export PATH="/path/to/Odin/folder:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
  • Note that the compiler executable expects to be next to/in the same folder as the base, core, and vendor folders, you can however set the ODIN_ROOT environment variable to override the path to these folders
• If macOS complains that it can't verify the executable, it might be quarantined because it's unsigned. To unquarantine, try xattr -d com.apple.quarantine <path_to_odin_executable>

Others (Unix):

• Install Clang which is used for linking (see your package manager's instructions)
  • Debian/Ubuntu - apt install clang
  • Fedora - dnf install clang
• Optionally add the Odin folder to your shell's path or symlink the odin binary to a folder that is in your shell's path
  • Example for bash (from the Odin folder): echo 'export PATH="/path/to/Odin/folder:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
  • Note that the compiler executable expects to be next to/in the same folder as the base, core, and vendor folders, you can however set the ODIN_ROOT environment variable to override the path to these folders

Windows

1. Odin needs the MSVC compiler and windows SDK from the "Desktop development with C++" component. If you don't have this already, you can download the installer here. Make sure to at least click on "Desktop development with C++" and tick the boxes for MSVC and the Windows SDK. It should look something like:
   • If you want the smallest install possible, there is a third-party script that installs only the things that are needed
2. Your command prompt will probably not have the Microsoft Build Tools set up by default, there are 2 ways to set it up if it isn't:
   • run the x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS20xx shortcut bundled with Visual Studio (search in start menu), or
   • run vcvarsall.bat x64 from a blank cmd session
3. Clone the repository somewhere: git clone https://github.com/odin-lang/Odin
4. Navigate to the Odin folder: cd Odin
5. Optionally use git checkout dev-YYYY-MM to checkout one of the official releases
6. Run git lfs install (once, to install git hooks) and optionally git lfs pull to set up Git LFS and fetch the files stored there.
7. Run build.bat release
8. Optionally add the Odin compiler directory to the PATH environment variable so odin.exe is accessible everywhere on your computer

MacOS

1. Install XCode command-line tools xcode-select --install
   • If that command is not found you may need to install XCode from the App Store
2. Install Homebrew and then LLVM: brew install llvm, the versions we support are 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22
3. Clone the repository somewhere: git clone https://github.com/odin-lang/Odin
4. Navigate to the Odin folder: cd Odin
5. Optionally use git checkout dev-YYYY-MM to checkout an official release
6. Run git lfs install (once, to install git hooks) and optionally git lfs pull to set up Git LFS and fetch the files stored there.
7. Run make release-native
   • If you want to specify an explicit LLVM version or path, you can set the LLVM_CONFIG environment variable: LLVM_CONFIG=/path/to/llvm-config make release-native
8. Optionally add the Odin folder to your shell's path or symlink the odin binary to a folder that is in your shell's path
   • Example for ZSH (from the Odin folder): echo 'export PATH="/path/to/Odin/folder:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
   • Note that the compiler executable expects to be next to/in the same folder as the base, core, and vendor folders, you can however set the ODIN_ROOT environment variable to override this

Others (Unix)

1. Install clang and LLVM (the versions we support are 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22) using your package manager
   • It could be that LLVM is split into multiple packages and you also need to install something like llvm-devel
   • If you are using an older (or Enterprise) release, the distro may not offer a sufficiently current and complete version of LLVM by default
     • On a Debian-based distro, we recommend using https://apt.llvm.org to install LLVM 22
     • On a RedHat-based distro, we suggest COPR, e.g. dnf copr enable fedora-llvm-team/llvm-snapshots
2. Make sure llvm-config, llvm-config-(17|18|19|20|21|22), or llvm-config(17|18|19|20|21|22) and clang are able to be found through your $PATH
   • If you want to specify an explicit LLVM version or path, you can set the LLVM_CONFIG environment variable: LLVM_CONFIG=/path/to/llvm-config make release-native
3. Clone the repository somewhere: git clone https://github.com/odin-lang/Odin
4. Navigate to the Odin folder: cd Odin
5. Optionally use git checkout dev-YYYY-MM to checkout an official release
6. Run git lfs install (once, to install git hooks) and optionally git lfs pull to set up Git LFS and fetch the files stored there.
7. Run make release-native
   • If an atomic.h error occurs, see the following section about it
8. Optionally add the Odin folder to your shell's path or symlink the odin binary to a folder that is in your shell's path
   • Example for bash (from the Odin folder): echo 'export PATH="/path/to/Odin/folder:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
   • Note that the compiler executable expects to be next to/in the same folder as the base, core, and vendor folders, you can however set the ODIN_ROOT environment variable to override this